


The Human Sickness

by Lillian



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Anal Sex, Captivity, Consent Issues, M/M, Size Kink, Xeno, Xenophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-07 15:29:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17368532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lillian/pseuds/Lillian
Summary: Tony bought the merboy at a Cretan market, for the price of his watch and a set of cufflinks.





	1. Chapter 1

Tony bought the merboy at a Cretan market, for the price of his watch and a set of cufflinks. The watch was a one of a kind Piaget, worth over a million. It seemed like a bargain while Tony was drunk, and only scarcely less so once he sobered up. Mermaids were illegal to hunt in the US, but not to import and to possess, and the moment Tony had seen this one he knew he had to possess him.

Full of fried fish and wine Tony had given Happy the slip and sauntered towards the beach for a walk and one of the bitter local cigarettes. The glow of it was the only light on the beach as late as this, and Tony had nearly walked into the aquarium. He'd raised his hand for a drag just in time to see the little red dot reflected in the smudged glass. Tony took out his phone and inspected the box, and that was when the boy drove himself against the iron bars lining the glass from the inside. Tony caught a glimpse of wide, frightened eyes and the silvery glint of a tail with thin, trailing fins resembling fine lace. Only for a second, the boy retreated quickly, either reassured no new danger had decided to visit him in the dead of night, or disappointed because it was no rescue either.

Tony circled the box, all of a sudden feeling much more sober, and saw nothing more as if the boy were playing hide-and-seek with him. So instead Tony walked towards the cozy amber windows of the nearest pub where the fishermen were still toasting their good fortune, and gave them one more reason to celebrate.

The boy he left for Happy to ship home, while Tony himself took the yacht to Istanbul. The city proved as diverting as ever so Tony didn't give a single thought to his little new goldfish. Well, silverfish.

When he came home to Malibu, the merboy was in his swimming pool. Tony felt the weariness of jet lag slide right of his shoulders as soon as Jarvis alluded to Tony's "guest", replaced with excitement. He stalked towards the pool, stopped for a second at the edge, just long enough for the boy to notice him, then took a step right over the punctured plexiglass preventing his marvelous new purchase from jumping over the side right into the ocean.

Tony walked slowly to the center and stopped, and looked down.

The crystal water and transparent covering hid nothing, couldn't hope to prevent Tony from feasting his eyes. The boy seemed frozen right beneath Tony's feet, his large, luminous eyes just as beautiful in sunlight. But now there was also the rest of him, his lean arms, pale as fish belly, his pink pebbled nipples and trembling lips, his narrow waist that would fit as perfectly in Tony's hands as the steering wheel of one of his sleek, expensive cars. The boy couldn't have seen any change in Tony's expression, not with his glasses and the sun shining behind his back, but he spooked all the same and started swimming in panicked circles around the periphery near the bottom, looking like a blur. The iridescent sparkle of his scales in the sunshine was beautiful as well. Tony admired it for a while, the boy never once stopping, in fact turning even more frantic with time, before he got bored and wandered off in search of a cold drink.

He fed the boy bits of deboned fish later. The boy snatched them grudgingly from Tony's hand before retreating to the far corner of the pool to eat his bounty in a couple of quick, neat little bites. Tony was already designing an aquarium for him, a real one. He jotted his plans on his shirt's lapel and later gave Jarvis instruction. Tony gutted the inside of the house, replaced most of the inner walls with new, hollow ones, wide enough that the boy would be able to move comfortably. The banging seemed to greatly alarm Tony's little fish, who stuck his long fingers with ragged fingernails into the breathing holes of the plexiglas sheet and made noises of his own, high-pitched, distressed calls and clicks. Tony flopped on his front next to him, which made the fingers disappear and the noise cut off, and tried to shush him. Talking didn't help, but the sight of Tony unconcerned did after a while, and the kid curled in a little ball as far from the noise as possible.

Tony had to tranq him for the move, no helping that. Tony moved him himself, with a little help from a suit. He could have had the mark carry the boy's on its own, but it was more fun when Tony was inside. He plucked the unresisting body from the water and climbed out of the pool with the slippery weight. Less of a weight that Tony imagined, actually. He meant to transfer the boy to the aquarium immediately, but his curiosity got the better of him, as it often did. He laid out the kid on his sofa, exited the suit and sat down so he could have a better look.

Up close, the boy looked even younger. His hair was an unusual length for a merman, who tended either to grow it very long or to shave it. It was short, but not too short for a good grip, and it was rapidly drying now in the scorching California air which revealed a sudden curl to it. Tony reached out to touch a lock without thinking about it. It was very soft, and so was the skin of the boy's cheekbone when Tony dragged the back of his calloused knuckles across. He ran his hands against the scales, which were so silky-supple he could feel them against his palms like warmed silk for minutes afterwards. The place the scales gave way to human skin was just below the boy's navel - so really, he wasn't a fish at all - and there was a thin strip, barely quarter of an inch of in-between skin there, grey and shiny. Tony worried it with his thumbnail, then rubbed the boy's gauzy fins between his fingers. The boy had hair, outright fluffy now it was nearly dry, uneven eyebrows and long, clumped eyelashes, but no hair on his body.

Tony was so lost in his explorations he only remembered exactly why he'd taken him out of the pool when the boy's fingers started twitching. Tony took him in his arms hastily, and managed to stagger to the latch in the wall before the tranquilizer wore off completely.

The boy drifted in the water, eyelids fluttering endearingly, before he woke in a frenzy. He was a clever one, clever enough that he quickly realized beating his body against the barriers was no good, but still he swam like a rat running in a maze. He refused to take pellets from the feeder for two days, and he avoided Tony. Tony wasn't worried, and soon enough the boy's survival instincts kicked in. Later still, his boredom drove him to watch what Tony was doing, first only swimming by his station in the workshop, pretending to only pass by. Then, lingering, looking enthralled despite himself. Tony made him a toy, an apparatus the doled out bits of lettuce, fatty seal skin and other such delicacies for every correctly solved mathematical problem. The boy did lazy flips around Tony's kitchen while chewing the seal skin like gum, showing off, and Tony couldn't help but grin at him while inhaling his second morning coffee.

He'd spent too much time holed up at home, to the point where he didn't even have fun once he went out. He drove around aimlessly, went for sushi because he wondered if he could get some to go for the kid. A table of models asked him to join their table, the girls feeding each other suggestively, looking up at Tony under their brush-like false lashes. And well, why not? He brought only two of the back, excusing himself that the Porsche was a two-seater. In reality, he wasn't in the mood for more. The girls huddled together on the passenger seat, giggling to Tony's jokes. Back home he made them drinks, made conversation, turned on some music. The house fascinated them, the view delighted them, Jarvis charmed them.

It was all very predictable.

The boy must have been asleep because he turned up during round three. Tony had the girls side by side on all fours on his bed, fucking one, then the other. The kid drifted in slowly from the side, more confused than curious. Tony caught and held his eyes, made his pet fish freeze in place, and started thrusting faster. The girl under him arched her back like a happy cat and purred, and the boy blinked once, slowly, like a pampered child swatted by his parent for the first time. He disappeared with a flick of his tail, face turned away. Tony did the same, now that there were no distractions, and realized he'd picked the two girls who looked the most like his merman.


	2. Chapter 2

The kid broke routine for the next few days. When before he'd spent a lot of time exploring, playing with the wall gardens of anemones and seaweed Tony had installed for him, or simply staring at the ocean outside, now he tended to follow Tony from room to room. He would stare at Tony with an expression wavering between puzzled and lost until Tony stared back. Then he would avert his gaze until Tony went back to his work, at which point the scrutiny would continue. It was starting to drive Tony crazy.

Before, when Tony wanted to be alone he would descend into the workshop. There, behind two security doors and under Jarvis' watchful eye, was the only place Tony knew he wouldn't be disturbed unless he allowed it.

Only now there was the boy. Tony had assumed he wouldn't count, like Jarvis, Dummy, and the rest. He had severely miscalculated. The kid even slept with his head and shoulders jammed into the recess beside the water purifier in the wall-turned-aquarium between the workshop and the garage. Maybe he found the warmth and humming comforting, or perhaps it was instinct to find as secure as possible a place to sleep. There were no nooks and crannies in his aquarium, everything was on display. Now for the first time Tony realized that went both ways, and the clear walls made it harder for Tony to hide too. Every time he turned on the lights in the workshop for a late-night tinkering session, the kid's pretty eyes would blink open and he would give Tony a sleepy, long-lashed look over the crook of his elbow from his narrow perch right across the workshop entrance, and Tony would wish he'd stayed in bed.

He tried to distract the kid with surprises. He made another toy, one that would teach the kid to communicate in English. Tony judged he was more than clever enough for it, except as soon as he got what the device was for the kid lost all interest in it.

After that Tony brought out the heavy guns. He enclosed a round section of the roof with a clear dome and installed a hatch the kid could open from the inside. He did the heavy lifting himself, all nice and quiet, like the kid liked it. Here, the kid could sun himself or feel the wind through the vertical gaps in this improvised fish globe. Once it was all done Tony made Jarvis lay a light trail for the kid to follow.

This worked, and the kid started hanging up there a lot. Tony pulled up the video feed a couple of times the first day and there the kid was, elbows resting on the roof and face turned up into the sun while his tail fanned back and forth under the water. He looked curiously pensive, but at least he wasn't breathing down Tony's neck any more. Metaphorically speaking.

The plan now was to sink into the familiar loop of testing and tinkering, the useful kind of bender. And like many of Tony's benders, it was broken prematurely by the arrival of Rhodey. Well, Pepper had taken on the dubious privilege for a few years, but now Rhodey was back in action like he'd never left. As Tony wiped his hands in an oily rag and took the stairs up to the house two at a time, he found he didn't really mind that much. He kept remembering the way Pepper had screamed in the recently halved car after she and Happy so narrowly avoided the same fate. How naked she'd seemed in that instant. Tony could have made her a suit like he had for Rhodey, but Pepper didn't want to live life enclosed in a carapace. Meanwhile Tony couldn't live without that any more. Or he could live, but he couldn't be himself.

Rhodey stood in the far end of the living area, engaged in what looked at first like a Mexican standoff with Tony's biggest and ugliest walled photograph. Then the kid peeked around the frame before darting right back out of sight. Tony winced and jogged over to do damage control. The look Rhodey shot him was so flat it approached concave.

"I'm not even going to ask if it was obtained legally-"

"Of course he was, I'm wounded you'd even suggest otherwise-"

"-because I don't want to have to lie under oath if I'm summoned to your trial-"

"-given that you're my oldest and dearest friend."

"-on charges of poaching or illegal trafficking of wildlife."

"Speaking of poaching, want some eggs?"

"...I could go for eggs."

Tony cooked breakfast himself, rambling inanely in the futile hope it would distract Rhodey. He'd also banished the kid from the kitchen, instructing Jarvis to cut off the entry points to that side of the house with a few surreptitious taps on his tablet. He was half successful - Rhodey dropped the topic of Tony's questionable acquisition but not because of Tony's maneuvering. One of the reasons their friendship had endured all these years was that Rhodey only ever nagged Tony over one thing at a time, and he had come over with a different goal in mind. 

"I told you, I'm not joining the Avengers. Fury will have to find himself another sugar daddy slash maintenance man," Tony said over his shoulder in between cracking eggs.

Rhodey sighed long-sufferingly. "I know you have reasons to distrust the guy, I get it, I do too, but this is about the safety of the planet and his interests _definitely_ align with ours there."

"The planet is probably better off with several lines of defense. That way if I go down the _Mighty Avengers_ will still be there to pick up the slack. Never put your eggs in one basket and all that. And I wouldn't trust Fury with my eggs," Tony said, shoveling the steaming food onto plates.

"Can we stop talking about your eggs before I lose my appetite," mumbled Rhodey predictably as Tony set the plates down on the island. He tried to steal a bite off Rhodey's plate which made Rhodey hug it defensively and dig in. For a moment everything between them felt easy and light as a soap bubble, and just as fragile.

"I just can't believe you keep blowing me off and right after you turn around and take on such a big responsibility," Rhodey said quietly once Tony's culinary efforts had been properly appreciated. Tony didn’t pretend not to know what he was talking about. 

"It's not a big responsibility for me. He'll be taken care of whether I want to involve myself or not. I'll probably just release him when I get bored of him," he admitted. Rhodey could never take such things in stride, he always needed the reality of Tony's spoiled rich bastard whims explained, and that frustrated them both. Tony didn’t want to fight today - or ever - so he hurried on. "Come on, you know Fury's messing with your head. Every time someone slips on a wet spot in a Shield bathroom he insinuates that wouldn't have happened if Iron Man had been there to catch the goober or if Tony Stark had footed the bill for the plumber. And he's trying to convince you it's your fault because you didn't make me sign on. Don't let him get to you, Rhodey."

Rhodey kept quiet for a minute and then asked, "What does Pepper think about the sprat?" It was an olive branch and a hit under the belt at the same time, and Tony could respect that.

"Pepper hasn't seen him," he said airily. "Running Stark Industries is busy work and she takes it seriously. The company lucked out with her."

There was a much shorter pause because Rhodey was a good friend as well as a dirty fighter. "I wanted a rabbit when I was five. I was gonna name him Peter after that book, you know, the one with the waistcoats and- you get it."

"I sure do. Now I know what I'm getting you for your birthday."

"Hilarious." Rhodey's chin tipped up to the blue water above them. "Seriously, I don't know why you'd want one. These things creep me out. You should have heard the tales the navy guys who got deployed in Sokovia told about them. They said the mermaids trailed the ships around the Adriatic for miles sometimes, like they wanted to be captured. Every few months one beached itself and crawled inland looking drunk or entranced, trailing blood if someone didn't stop it quickly enough and then it freaked out like it didn't know how it got there."

Tony shrugged lazily. "Mine's been acting like an ordinary fish person, according to Jarvis. He dug out some documentary about mer people and orangutans, something about their lack of aggression in captivity only making them more sought after pets. Think he was trying to nudge my conscience?"

Rhodey shook his head impatiently. "Just take care of yourself, man. You're getting too old to keep indulging your self-destructive streak."

Once Rhodey was gone, Tony told Jarvis he didn't want to be disturbed and scaled the spiral staircase to the fishbowl. At the top of it was a ladder, and at the end of that Tony had a hatch of his own, tightly secured. Jarvis unlocked it for him now and Tony ascended into the bright light, the hatch falling closed behind him with a snap.

The boy was here, like Tony had expected him to be. His hair was dry again, only this time it was also in charming disarray, like the boy had driven his fingers through it again and again while it dried. The fine salt on the boy's shoulders and cheekbones glittered a little in the sun. Tony grinned at him, cheered up by the pretty picture. The grin morphed into something more complex when the boy only looked at him expressionlessly.

Tony hadn't mentioned some of Jarvis' research to Rhodey, the very rare cases in which a mermaid vanished along with its owner. Sometimes a body washed up from the sea or a nearby river days or weeks afterwards, and sometimes it didn't. Tony could have a mark up here in 3.4 seconds and he could defend himself well enough without one. All the same... there was a risk in approaching his little silver fish.

"Hey, kid. Sulking on me again?" he asked, wondering how much the kid could understand him. He must pick up on the tone of voice if nothing else. Tony's was soft, friendly, a sliver mocking, and it made the boy's mouth grow tight and thin while his tail wagged in the water uncertainly. The kid seemed agitated but determined not to show it, and with a flash of insight Tony realized that was true about his behavior after he'd caught Tony fucking as well. It occurred to him the boy might think sex was the only reason other people were admitted to the house, that it was the reason why he wanted to be alone with Rhodey.

Tony bit back a laugh and crouched at the very edge of the water. He reached out a hand towards the kid, palm up. "Come on, don't be jealous. There's plenty of me to go around."

The kid frowned disapprovingly, then seemed uncertain. Tony could almost see the cogs in the kid's head turning as he dithered. His eyelids opened and closed in a slow, innocent way that reminded Tony of the movement of butterfly wings. The thought was uncharacteristically poetic for him but the comparison fit. He wriggled his fingers to encourage the boy. It worked.

The kid floated closer and cautiously nosed at Tony’s palm like a seal. Tony tweaked his nose, ran his fingers over the kid's hair. The kid twisted under him, casting him an offended look, but then tried to butt his nose at Tony's hand again like it was a game. Tony retracted it, the kid followed and Tony found himself with a willing merboy putting himself into position to be touched.

Tony's smile faded off his face. Part of him had known it would come to this. He hadn't planned on it but he had been aware of the attraction tingeing his fascination with the kid from the very beginning.

The kid that didn't seem to be reading the room very well now. He grabbed Tony's unresisting hand and started kneading at it like a prize. His head bent over it as he traced the lines on the palm, leaving the back of his auburn head and pale, bony nape naked and vulnerable.

Tony let the pads of his fingers slide up the kid's backbone, easy as pie. He paused with his big hand cradling the back of the kid's neck when he squirmed nervously, then used it to draw the kid even nearer. Up close the kid's skin seemed softer and more inviting, sheened like mother of pearl. Tony wondered idly how old the kid was - a hundred, two hundred? Or had he witnessed a millennium already masked behind that fresh face which didn't look more than twenty to Tony? Whatever the truth the kid peeked from under his eyelashes with shyness that suggested youth. Tony found he didn't mind. He'd never gone for the virginal type, but then that would be far from the only way the kid went against his usual type.

Which reminded Tony that he could indulge his curiosity now. He sat down at the edge of the hatch, dangling his feet into the water without caring that the legs of his trousers and trainers immediately got soaked through. The kid let Tony reel him in until he fit between Tony's knees and Tony could slip his arm underneath the kid's shoulders to support him. His other hand he let wander. He traced a wave-polished arm, brushed tentatively against the slash of a gill between two ribs to feel its frantic gulping, then reached down until his fingers closed around the delicate webbed base of a gossamer flipper.

The kid trembled gently as Tony touched him and it was the most natural thing in the world to kiss his hair repeatedly to soothe him. More than ever he gave the impression of a sweet, biddable thing, a baby animal so cute it made you want to crush it.

"You do look like a Peter," he murmured and the kid turned his beguiling eyes up at Tony and parted his lips, and there was nothing to do but kiss him. Tony fit his mouth against the kid's, drew his lower lip in for a taste, then slipped in the tip of his tongue with his usual impudence. Looks-like-Peter's saliva was a little too slick, his mouth a little too hot to forget he wasn't human. His sharp little teeth nicked Tony's tongue when the kid clumsily tried to reciprocate.

Tony let the animal pleasure of sex lead him on. He gathered Peter in his arms, the slight and slippery weight gliding against his belly once the kid pushed his shirt up. Peter pawed at it like it offended him until Tony managed to get rid of it, one sleeve at a time, never letting go of Peter in the process.

To reward himself he took a lick of a salty, tempting cheekbone, rubbed his lips against the hollow of the kid's cheek. Peter wriggled and wound his arms around Tony's neck to hang off Tony's shoulders like a limpet. Tony nipped on his ear and rasped out, "all right, Pete, let's see what equipment you've got."

He groped down the flopping tail once more, poking and probing. His fingers sunk somewhere slick and shallow and the kid burbled wetly and hid his face against Tony's neck. A second later Tony groped at a freshly sprung out something that resembled a cock. It was no more than a handful, widest at the base and tapering towards the tip, much suppler than a human dick. Tony gave it an experimental tug and the kid burbled again while the tip of his cock tried to wrap around Tony's thumb like a very clumsy tentacle. Tony laughed into the kid's hair, his fluffy, copper-tinged hair, while caressing his alien dick. That sure was a first.

He heaved the kid out of the water and lay him down on the roof. Peter flailed a little, his tail sending water splashing and getting wet whatever pieces of Tony's pants had managed to stay dry so far. Tony thought, _fuck it_ and just pushed pants and underwear down, toed off his shoes when they got in the way, until the last of his clothes sank into the water.

Naked and so much lighter he turned around and crawled over Peter. The kid gawked at him, then remembered to be shy, then outright stared at Tony's erection. It hung heavy between his legs, big by human standards. To the kid it must have looked like a fucking monster cock. Tony kissed a trail across the kid's clavicle and neck, deliberately rubbing his beard against the tender skin, hoping it would distract Peter. He ran his fingers down the silvery tail again, looking for a place to stick his dick in, feeling like he'd go crazy if he didn't find one.

When Tony found his asshole Peter uttered a nasal grunt and looked so scandalized Tony would have laughed again if he wasn't so hard he could hammer nails. His dick bobbed and kissed Peter's pretty scales while Tony thumbed at the tiny hole and almost bit through his own lip at the possibility that he might not fit.

He had to fit. He had to stick his dick into Peter no matter what.

He tugged at the unscaled edges of the hole with fingers coated in his own saliva, then Peter's saliva, dipping in only to the first knuckle, pulling back when Peter squirmed and clicked in the back of his throat. For such a beautiful creature he made the ugliest noises.

Eventually Tony couldn't wait. He put his palm in front of Peter's mouth and Peter immediately got with the program and licked it. Tony slicked his own cock with a coupled of tugs and settled over the kid, supporting himself on one elbow. Peter's hand touched him here and there, ribs, upper arm, hip, never settling. Tony kissed him quickly in the corner of the mouth, less a promise that he wouldn't hurt him than that he would try not to. He stared avidly at the boy's face as he pushed in and that helped. Peter's mouth trembled as the head popped in and Tony somehow managed not to ram in. Which was good because Peter's insides turned out to be a twisty fucking maze that had to be coaxed into taking in every fraction of an inch of Tony's cock.

Inside Peter was tight, silky and fever hot. Tony couldn't remember the last time he'd had sex without a condom but, fuck, it couldn't have been this amazing or he never could have settled for anything else. He kissed whatever part of Peter's face he could reach as he rocked into Peter in an increasingly desperate rhythm. He never even managed to sink his whole cock in, the last maddening inch stayed out as Tony shoved in hard again and again. Peter's own cock flopped against Tony's stomach, curling and uncurling. They were not meant for each other, Tony thought deliriously as Peter's scales cut into his thighs on every thrust, as Peter's ragged nails and sharp teeth drew blood from his back and shoulder.

Tony didn't care. Nothing mattered aside from reaching that high. In the end though Peter got there first. He quivered and contracted around Tony, and Tony pushed in as deep as he could and came violently in several wrenching bursts, his balls aching while his dick sputtered happily inside Peter's clutching ass.

Tony came down slowly. He was selfish even in this, blanketing Peter and holding his face to keep him where Tony wanted him. He kissed the kid's mouth shallowly, with lots of teeth while the kid warbled and nestled up against Tony.

"I officially disturbed myself this time," Tony muttered between kisses. He would have been happy to doze next to the kid before waking him up for a late lunch, if only they'd been lying on a bed and not a wet roof. And if the kid's lunch weren't raw fish bits poured out of a bucket. And if Tony were more likely to wake up with an erection poking him in the hip rather than a tentacle cozily wrapped around his cock.

He pulled out slowly, rubbing Peter's cheek when the kid winced. As soon as there was enough space Peter flipped onto his stomach and pillowed his head on his hands. It was how he always slept. Tony hovered over him and the kid fell asleep so quickly things didn't have a chance to become truly awkward. Tony took him in, stubble burn and chafed raw back, a fucking shell-like ear sticking out of his hair and his fingers nearly sucked into his mouth. Tony couldn't stand it, he had to get out of there.

He descended the ladder buck naked, feeling like he was running and like there was something he should have done differently. Back in his room he pulled on some clothes with sharp, hasty movements, then had to stop halfway through for a trip to the bathroom to scrub Peter's sticky, stinky come off his belly. The smell lingered still, a weird caviary odour Tony should have found funny but didn't. He should have taken another shower but he'd had enough of water for one day.

He flopped face down on his bed and decided he was blowing things out of proportion. So he'd had sex with his mer pet. Lots of people did that. Who was to say it would ever happen again? Tony would bring home someone else to fuck (except that prospect seemed like a chore right now) and Peter would either get what was what and keep his distance from now on, or he wouldn't give a shit and Tony would be able to chalk the whole thing up to some weird instinct.

Either way there was no reason why a simple fuck had to change anything.


	3. Chapter 3

Late that night Peter dove down into the only outer wall available to him and stared at the water. He couldn't sleep out of giddiness and impatience. The ocean called him more insistently than ever, but Peter knew he had to be patient. He had made so much progress with his human already. He wasn't sure what his human's name was - other humans called him Tony, Mister Stark, Sir, Big Guy, Asshole - but he was confident he'd find out soon.

They had mated, Peter and his human, and Peter's human had chosen a name for him, just like Uncle Ben had done for Aunt May on that balmy Venetian spring night 3 hundred years ago. Peter had begged to hear and soaked up the story many times, secretly hoping he could one day be part of one just as fateful and romantic. Now he had it. The human sickness hadn't needed to maze him, like those who put off finding a human too long. Instead, Peter tangled in a net while scouting the surface and his human was the one who found him instead of the other way around. He even spoke the same language as Uncle Ben! It was fate.

Peter would have to endure these confines for a little while longer. His human should begin changing soon, especially if he and Peter mated again. Not that it was such a hardship to bask in his human's care and to observe him in his natural surroundings. True, his human was confusing, capricious, rough and animalistic in his mating like Peter had heard humans were, but he was also clever, industrious and even handsome in a weird, alien way. He seemed to love devising toys and amusements for Peter. Peter had even enjoyed his freakishly large member in the end.

His cheeks flushed with embarrassment at the thought but a pleased little smile settled on his lips despite that. He couldn't wait to show his human the depths, the underwater palaces, to introduce him to Aunt May and Uncle Ben and Peter's nameless friends, his pharmacy and his favorite hunting haunts.

He fell asleep right there and dreamed of his human as he would be when the change was complete - still two-legged and human-shaped and hairy in strange places, but with shark skin to keep him warm in the depths and brand new gills at the base of his neck. Just as it should be.

Down below the waves lapped at the bedrock, the most ambitious ones reaching to the foundation of the house, greedy to sweep its occupants into the water.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew, it's finished. Hopefully it's also coherent and enjoyable. I'd love to know what you thought, and I'm open to suggestions for additional tags.


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